Automatic Sorting a Spreadsheet into new columns

Dan the Man

Hi! I have not used Smartsheet yet. I have a question and maybe Smartsheet can do this. Every year at tax time, I download all of my bank expenses to a spreadsheet.  There are hundreds of expenses all mixed up from the last 12 months - electricity, mortgage, car, etc.  I need a program that will sort the expenses by categories.  It would recognize the electricity expenses and put them in column A.  It would then recognize  the car expenses and put them in column B.   And so on.  Once all this sorting has been done (according to filtering criteria I have created),  I could do my taxes a lot more quickly and easily.  Is there a way to accomplish this?  It feels like it might be accomplished with an "if this, then that" kind of macro. Thank you!

J. Craig Williams

DtM,

Smartsheet does not have a scripting language.

If you import your data into Smartsheet, you could use REPORTS to show the data (and edit). The Expenses column would be a single column, but the Report would be showing you only what you want to see.

You can build multiple reports for each of your sort criteria.

If you really need the expenses in different columns (and I am not sure why you would - I do my taxes using Smartsheet and it is one row per expense, regardless of type), then you'd need to build formulas. Again, seems like the wrong direction without seeing the data. 

If the expenses are coming out of financial system (QuickBooks, Xero, etc...) you could use Zapier to bring them over when entered there and populate your Smartsheet in near real-time.

Craig

Dan the Man

Thank you!  I only create spreadsheets once a year  so I do not care if I am using rows or columns if I get accurate, quick results.  I also do not quite grasp anything but the simplest concepts at this time.   I download my expenses from Bank of America as an Excel spreadsheet. I guess I need somebody to set up the template or step by step instructions for me and then I can input my criteria for sorting.